Details:
Join us at the Kennedy Museum for Author Walk & Talk with Katherine Ziff on Thursday, October 2 from 5:30-7:00 pm. This free event will include an outdoor tour around parts of the Ridges followed by an indoor talk on Katherine's book Asylum on the Hill: History of a Healing Landscape.
Asylum on the Hill published by Ohio University Press is the story of a great American experiment in psychiatry, a revolution in care for those with mental illness, as seen through the example of the Athens Lunatic Asylum. Built in southeast Ohio after the Civil War, the asylum embodied the nineteenth-century “gold standard” specifications of moral treatment. Stories of patients and their families, politicians, caregivers, and community illustrate how a village in the coalfields of the Hocking River valley responded to a national movement to provide compassionate care based on a curative landscape, exposure to the arts, outdoor exercise, useful occupation, and personal attention from a physician.
Katherine Ziff’s compelling presentation of America’s nineteenth-century asylum movement shows how the Athens Lunatic Asylum accommodated political, economic, community, family, and individual needs and left an architectural legacy that has been uniquely renovated and repurposed. Incorporating rare photos, letters, maps, and records, Asylum on the Hill is a fascinating glimpse into psychiatric history.
The walk will include some uneven surfaces, so please wear comfortable closed toe shoes. Due to some subject matter, this event is recommended for ages 18 and above. Signed copies of the book will be available for purchase the evening of the event.
Registration is required at this link and allows for a amximum of 25 guests. See you there!
Katherine Ziff is a mental health clinician, an exhibiting artist, and has served as an adjunct professor in the counseling program at Ohio University. She has published in places such as the Journal of Creativity in Mental Health, the Journal for Specialists in Group Work, and History of Psychiatry. Ziff conducts workshops for counselors and educators, teaching the methods from her second book, ArtBreak.
KMA Author Walk & Talk is a FREE program for visitors of all ages to engage in shared educational activities.
